Good Plum » Tips and Tricks

How to Organize Your Desk in a Few Easy Steps

Elliott Kosmicki — Mon, 10 May 2010 18:20:59 +0000

An un-organized desk can significantly impede your productivity. If you can’t find an important file or even find a space for your laptop, you will waste valuable time looking for the file or just clearing off space. Worse still, not being organized can be demoralizing and foster procrastination. Fortunately, organizing your desk is possible – in just a few simple steps. Here’s how:

1) Manage your time. First and foremost, if the task seems overwhelming, set a timer and limit yourself to just 15 minutes of organizing at a time. You’ll be amazed at how much you can get done in just 15-20 minutes. If you haven’t tried the The Pomodoro Technique, I highly recommend looking into it.

2) Put up or give up. Clear your desk and put back only what you use every day. Store everything else in drawers, on shelves, or in your supply closet. If you never or seldom use something, get rid of it. Give it away to someone who could make good use of it. Put anything that doesn’t belong on your desk in a pile. When the timer goes off, put all of those things away in their proper places.

3) No more “misc.” Don’t keep a “miscellaneous” file. Sort papers into files labeled specifically for the action needed. For example, keep a file for bills to pay, receipts to enter, papers to shred, etc. Anything that cannot be filed this way is not important enough to keep. Maintain virtual folders (and subfolders) the same way.

4) Organize your drawers. Arrange like items in each drawer. For example, put all of your office supplies in one drawer, stationery and notepads in another. That way, you won’t waste a lot of time searching for a pen when on the phone or looking for printer paper just before a deadline.

5) Clean out your virtual inbox. Declutter your virtual desk by deleting old emails that require no further action on your part. To store email you need to save, create a folder for it on your hard drive. Do not print emails unless you absolutely have to.

I also recommend keeping your inbox completely empty at the end of each day. It sounds daunting, and is a topic for another day, but I promise you that it can work wonders keeping you and your mind organized.

6) Use simple organizational tools. Bundle related papers together with clips, use trays for current papers or files (labeled “next week,” “this week,” etc.), and keep pens in a cup.

7) Take a moment. Whenever you have a lull in the day, take a moment to trash or shred old paperwork you don’t need anymore.

8) Conclude cleanly. At the end of each day, before you step away from your desk, clear it off and put everything away in its proper place. Wipe off your desk with a cleaner or just plain water.

Now that your desk is organized, you can get down to business! An organized desk makes for an organized mind.

Photo by Uwe Hermann / CC BY-SA 2.0

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Develop Better Social Media Habits

Elliott Kosmicki — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 23:29:07 +0000

Most of us spend too much unproductive time in front of social media during the day. Like Alec Baldwin’s alien character in the recent Hulu Super Bowl commercial says, “What are you going to do, turn off your TV and your computer? Ha!”

It’s sadly true. Television is one of the most unproductive habits you can engage yourself in. Though some people advocate getting rid of your TV altogether, I think I’d rather be slightly unproductive than miss Lost. The internet and social media have together created another hole for us to get trapped in. But, we have a choice: keep digging, or stay out.

I love Facebook. It allows me (much more-so than MySpace did) to keep in touch with current friends, family, and even friends I haven’t seen face-to-face for 10+ years. However, if you let yourself get overwhelmed with invitations, wall-posts, and applications – it’s easy for just this one site alone to consume you. Here’s a few tips to make your Facebook time less interfering and more productive.

- Write down what you want your Facebook experience to be. For me, it’s simply to stay in touch with people.
- Turn off email alerts. This will prevent you from clicking through every time someone adds you to something and distracting you from what you were focused on.
- Block invitations from people or applications. I appreciate you want to give me a bumper sticker, but it doesn’t do anything for my life (or yours).
- Set aside time for Facebook. If you know you’ll only spend 15 minutes each day checking friends, leaving messages, etc – you’ll now have the rest of the day freed up to build your empire.

These tips can be translated to almost any site that is sucking your productivity away. I’ll put together a Twitter post another time, but for now – do whatever it takes to make your online life less of a distraction.

How do you prevent social sites from eating up your productivity?

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The Best Productivity Workflow (for Me)

Elliott Kosmicki — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 22:06:01 +0000

Productivity Workflow

When it comes to productivity, one-size definitely does not fit all. But I’ve worked hard over the past several months trying to narrow down and perfect a workflow that works for me. Take a look, use it or parts of it, but try to get the information flow in your life forced through deliberate channels that you have control over. It’ll help reduce anxiety, and keep you with a clear picture of where you’re headed.

First, state your goals of your productivity system and workflow. For me, I wanted a quick easy way to get ideas out of my head, a way to organize those ideas, and a way to turn those ideas into actionable goals and items. Seems simple, but when you try using a million different tools to get it done, it turns into a sloppy mess of a nightmare.

Next, we’ll take a quick inventory of tools or resources we currently use, would like to use, or need to find. My list included three different todo applications!! How am I supposed to be productive when I’m using so many different programs that all do that same thing? I narrowed down my list to the following items – below each item is a notation about what role it plays in my personal productivity workflow:

Things for iPhone and Mac

Things is an application for Mac and iPhone. You may not use either of these, but here is what it gives me, personally: the ability to quickly enter items that come accross my mind, wirelessly sync those items to the desktop version, then organize into projects and life-areas. Granted, I can also do some organizing on the phone, but the phone app is much better at grabbing information, doing a little editing, and viewing your ongoing lists and projects.

Another thing that is invaluable to me, and why I use Things over several other applications I’ve tried, is the ability to easily pick which items to do today! This may seem like a no-brainer, but there are a lot of list applications that just… well… list stuff. Sure you can put them into projects and prioritize, but I want to get up and the morning, go through my actions/lists and determine what needs to be done right now.

Evernote for iPhone and Desktop

Evernote has come a long, long way since it first started out. I remember using it a long time ago and just kind of thinking, “this is alright.” Now, I don’t know if I could make it a day without using it. It’s that good!

Basically, Evernote is a digital note-taking application. You can use it’s Firefox browser plugin to grab snippets or entire websites, you can use it’s iPhone, Mac, or PC application to take notes – long or short – photos, audio? Sure. And it handles it all with ease. It allows me to take a project or todo item and really expand on it. Can you use paper for this? Sure you can, but what if I want to take a note at the office PC, then need it at home on the Mac? Or need it across town at a business lunch? I forgot my notebook!! Not with Evernote you didn’t.

Google Calendar

Not much to say here, but I use and swear-by Google Calendar. Simple and accessible from anywhere (it syncs to my iPhone calendar using Neuvasync).

Moleskine Notebooks

You probably thought I was anti-paper or something. But I’m really not. I LOVE notebooks – nice ones, that is. Aside from Google Calendar for scheduling, I also have a Moleskine Calendar sitting on my desk all day. I use it to take quick phone notes, and jot notes about the appointments in it.

You’ll also find me with a new Moleskine Volant notebook – a credit-card sized Moleskine with perforated pages for quick notes on the go.

I also use a standard ruled Moleskine for journalling.

What does all this mean? I can quickly get things out of my head, a daily review to turn all those things into actionable items, and a weekly review to make sure I’m on track. Things is the main part of my productivity plan right now, but I encourage you you find your own. Your personal, and business life will thank you!